GOP Unveils Medicaid Flexibility Bill

By Sam Baker


Congressional Republicans' bill to let states cut their Medicaid rolls would save the federal government nearly $3 billion over the next five years, according to a preliminary estimate from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).


A group of House and Senate Republicans on Tuesday outlined their bill to repeal the Medicaid "maintenance of effort" provisions in the new healthcare law. The law expands Medicaid beginning in 2014, and the federal government will initially foot the bill for the new beneficiaries. In the meantime, states are prohibited from reducing their eligibility levels.
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Ryan Budget Pulls the Rug Out from Under Seniors, People with Disabilities, and Struggling Families

Community Catalyst Press Release
Contact: Kathy Melley  Office: 617/275-2861  Mobile: 617/791-0708  kmelley@communitycatalyst.org

Joint Statement of Robert Restuccia, Executive Director, Community Catalyst, and Rev. Heyward Wiggins, Co-Chair PICO National Network Steering Committee, on the House Republican budget plan


(BOSTON AND WASHINGTON, DC) - "The House Republican 2012 budget plan released today is a blueprint for disaster. Rather than prioritizing cuts, it seeks to balance the budget on the backs of those who can least afford it - seniors, people with disabilities and struggling families - while asking too little of those who can most afford to sacrifice. Today Medicare and Medicaid work in tandem to help people stay healthy as they age, become disabled, or face hard times. Block grants, privatization and vouchers would take away the health care security that all Americans have relied on since 1965.

"As consumer and faith-based organizations representing millions of American families, we find it abhorrent that people would be made to suffer needlessly or die prematurely because they could not afford to get the care they need. The House plan to gut Medicaid and Medicare will roll back sixty years of social progress in the United States and decimate programs that are a critical part of the safety-net and the backbone of our health care system.

"Block granting Medicaid shifts costs to already financially overburdened states during this recession leads to dramatic cuts in benefits and eligibility for seniors, people with disabilities, children, pregnant women, and working parents, just when people need them most. Families that rely on Medicaid to cover long-term or nursing home care could face enormous financial strain in trying to care for loved ones when their health care costs are no longer picked up by Medicaid.

"Privatizing Medicare is a hand-out to insurance companies, driving up deductibles and co-payments for seniors on Medicare today, and doing nothing to contain health care costs. By 2021, Medicare as we know it would be gone, replaced by a voucher program that would require seniors to buy private insurance. Vouchers lead to rationed health care. As health care costs rise, vouchers would be too small to buy adequate coverage. Many seniors would find they couldn't afford coverage at all and end up uninsured.

"Instead of taking an ax to programs that provide health and economic security to millions of people, federal policy makers should build on the cost containment framework that is already part of the Affordable Care Act and focus on reducing excessive insurance premiums, giving people the care they need to stay out of hospitals and nursing homes, and investing in public health measures to reduce heart disease, diabetes and other chronic illnesses that lead to higher health care costs.

"The savings produced by the House plan come at a great human cost and take our health care system in the wrong direction. We ask Members of Congress to reject this radical proposal to take Medicaid and Medicare away from those who need it most."
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About Community Catalyst

Community Catalyst is a national non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to quality affordable health care for all. Since 1997, Community Catalyst has been working to build the consumer and community leadership required to transform the American health system. With the belief that this transformation will happen when consumers are fully engaged and have an organized voice, Community Catalyst works in partnership with national, state and local consumer organizations, policymakers, and foundations, providing leadership and support to change the health care system so it serves everyone - especially vulnerable members of society. For more information, visit www.communitycatalyst.org.

PICO National Network is a national network of faith-based community organizations working to expand health care coverage and improve communities in 17 states. www.piconetwork.org

In Campaign Against Health-care Law, Republicans Take on AARP - The Washington Post

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By Dan Eggen

House Republicans, who are continuing their efforts to chip away at President Obama’s health-care law, have now set their sights on a powerful group that strongly supported the legislation: the AARP seniors lobby.

Two GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee released a report Wednesday alleging that the nation’s largest seniors group stands to gain financially from the Affordable Care Act, because the law could result in greater demand for supplemental Medicare policies that carry the AARP stamp of approval.

In addition, the Ways and Means health and oversight subcommittees have scheduled a joint hearing Friday to grill AARP officials about the organization’s financial ventures.
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Does the GOP Have a Health Plan? | John Goodman's Health Policy Blog | NCPA.org

by John Goodman in his Health Policy blog

The Republicans have no plan to insure the uninsured. How do I know that? A New York Times editorial told me. So did Ezra Klein, writing in The Washington Post. Matt Miller, also writing in the Post, went further. “I’m willing to repeal ObamaCare,” he wrote, provided the Republicans can “cover the same number of uninsured” and “do it at a lower cost.”
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The McCain plan, for all those suffering from collective amnesia, proposed to replace all existing health care tax and spending subsidies with a universal health grant, structured like a refundable tax credit. The Patients’ Choice Act version of the idea is sponsored by Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Paul Ryan (R-WI). It promises $2,300 (individual) or $5,700 (family) to everyone who isn’t enrolled in a government health plan.
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Under the McCain/Coburn/Ryan approach, the first $5,700 a family spends on health insurance is courtesy of Uncle Sam. To have the kind of coverage a typical large corporation has, employees and employers would have to kick in about $6,300 more (with unsubsidized money). Not everyone may choose, or be able, to do that. Some might add $3,300 of their own money and buy a $9,000 plan. Some might settle for whatever catastrophic coverage $5,700 will buy. But everybody — and I mean everybody who doesn’t turn down a free lunch — would have protection against large medical bills.
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TIME GOES BY | The Social Security Attack

by Ronnie Bennett

I know, I know – that headline is hardly news. But the zeal with which tea partiers and many other Republicans in Congress are attacking it means you and I need to be thoroughly informed. Let's start with the immediate danger.

BACKGROUND

The House budget for fiscal year 2011, passed in the wee hours of Saturday morning, calls for about a $1.7 billion cut to Social Security. But wait.

If you have been following Time Goes By posts about the program over the years, you know that Social Security is self-funded, including administrative costs. So what gives? How come Congress can cut those administrative costs?

Here is how: Social Security and SSI benefits are mandatory spending, meaning they are authorized by permanent law. They can be changed under certain circumstances, but that is not what is at risk right now.

Administrative costs, which have remained at about one percent of revenue for many years while providing excellent service, are discretionary spending. This means they are subject to the annual appropriations process (the budget) and Congress can change the amount every year affecting the number of employees and therefore, level of service.

Right now, because the government has lacked a budget for FY2011, administrative costs are frozen at 2010 levels - $11.5 billion - and the House budget cut of $1.7 billion, passed over the weekend, would leave only $9.8 billion.

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), in a 18 February letter to Congress, pointed out what this cut means to the program:

“It means having to wait longer to get an appointment to file for benefits. It means not receiving a decision in a timely manner. It means getting a busy signal when you call an office or the Agency's toll-free 800 number telephone service.

“It means not having your change of address or direct deposit information processed in a timely fashion.

“And finally, it means significant employee furloughs or even office closures, resulting in even greater degradations of service to America's seniors.”

Having made a move across country last year, I know how well the Social Security Administration has handled that bank deposit change in the past and how difficult it would have been to my finances if the switch to a new bank had been delayed for even one month – something likely to become common if the budget cut is enacted.

CURRENT EVENTS

Regarding the “furloughs” mentioned by the NCPPSM, on the day before that letter, the Social Security Administration sent a letter to the employees' union requesting the start of negotiations on furloughs that would be required under the proposed cut. Those talks must begin by 22 March.

Should the cut to Social Security administrative costs remain in the final bill and should President Obama sign it, the furloughs and all they mean to Social Security beneficiaries will go into effect.

Congress is cutting the time for the budget bill close. The House has sent it to the Senate, but the Senate is not in session this week returning on 28 February, just five days before 4 March.

And what is the significance of that date?

Because a budget for FY2011 could not be agreed upon last year, the federal government is currently operating under a continuing resolution that will end on 4 March. That is the day that many fear the government will shut down because they can't spend any money if a new budget has not been signed by the president before then.

WHAT'S NEXT

Given the draconian cuts to virtually every federal agency (including Social Security) the House budget contains, many of which will be disputed in the Senate (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised no cuts to Social Security), what do YOU think the chances are of having a signed budget by 4 March?

Yesterday on CNN, Republican Senator Richard Luger of Indiana told host Candy Crowley:

”I would not support the entirety of the House bill, but I think the basic problem presently is there's very little time. There is the imminence of a government shutdown.”

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said on the same program that “Speaker Boehner seems to be on a course that would inevitably lead to a shutdown,” and from what I read, Republicans in general seem to be eager for it, especially those new tea partiers in Congress. Schumer suggested a stopgap budget to forestall a shutdown, but that seems a remote possibility.

If the federal government shuts down, non-essential employees cannot go to work. Last week, both the president and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Social Security checks would be delayed, and that would almost immediately affect those of us (about half of Social Security recipients) who receive our Social Security direct deposits or checks on the second Wednesday of the month (9 March).

If your monthly budget is as tight as mine, that is a disaster. Sure, I can eat, but some people won't. And depending on how long a shutdown lasted I, like many others, couldn't pay some bills on time. The 1995 “Newt Gingrich shutdown” lasted five days and Congress is much more polarized this time.

So in preparation, I'm arranging to transfer some money from elsewhere into my checking account. What about you?

TIME GOES BY | The Social Security Attack

Obama Vigorously Defends Healthcare Reform: 'Granny is safe' - The Hill's Healthwatch

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By Jason Millman

In his most vigorous defense of the healthcare law since Republicans took control of the House, Obama fired back Friday at GOP claims that the law deprives essential care for seniors and balloons the deficit.

“You may have heard once or twice this is a job-crushing, granny-threatening, budget-busting monstrosity,” Obama said to pro-reform advocates at the Families USA annual conference in Washington. “That just doesn’t match up to the reality.”

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Town Hall Crowd Cheers On Man Confronting GOP Rep Over Repealing Health ...

Republicans' Deficit Ceiling Bluff an Attack on Social Security

HHS Outlines Repercussions of Repealing Healthcare Reform - The Hill's Healthwatch

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By Jason Millman - 01/04/11 04:52 PM ET

As Republicans eye a vote next week to repeal the new healthcare reform law, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will unveil a detailed outline of national and state-by-state repercussions if repeal succeeds.
Complete Article   or  State by State Report

Richard (RJ) Eskow: An Open Letter to Tea Party Activists: Let's Defend Social Security Together

by Richard (RJ) Eskow

Polls consistently find that the vast majority of Americans oppose cutting Social Security, whether they're progressives or Tea Partiers or anything in between. And most real experts agree it's not necessary. We're supposed to have a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." So why does something most of us oppose look more likely with every passing day?

Republicans have been threatening to shut down the government unless the program is slashed, and the administration's been sending out benefit reduction trial balloons ever since the Deficit Commission came to its ignominious end. Since Tea Partiers and progressives both oppose cutting Social Security, why shouldn't they work together to make sure it doesn't happen? Left and right joined forces to audit the Federal Reserve. Why can't they unite to protect America's retirement security? That's why I've written this letter.

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